


and put your mind at ease

by kvetching



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Feelings, Friends With Benefits, Happy Ending, Law School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23355178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kvetching/pseuds/kvetching
Summary: "Do you," Chloe started, and then too late realized Beca was going to make fun of her, but whatever, she'd dug the hole, "uh, do you, like, take girls up here?"
Relationships: Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell
Comments: 37
Kudos: 205





	and put your mind at ease

**Author's Note:**

> this deserves to be 5k longer and 10x better but i wrote it in a fugue state in six hours. stock disclaimers: characters not mine, please don't sue me, please don't post elsewhere, etc etc. apologies for any fudged details wrt california or law school, i never know what i'm talking about!
> 
> title from A Little Less Conversation by Elvis Presley. if you like it, or if you don't, drop a line in the comments! :)

"I heard," Beca said when Chloe came into the library. At least they were getting it out of the way first thing. "Sucks. Sorry." She looked grim, but not pitying, and she didn't offer to talk about it or ask if there was anything she could do.

"Relationships end," Chloe said, super calm and mature. "Life goes on."

"Glad you're finding your zen about it," said Beca, and didn't wait for a response before she put on her headphones, so that was that.

•

Aubrey helped her collect all her shit from Tom's place. It was crazy to think that they had been on the verge of living together. Not that Tom was a really bad guy, he just wasn't a great guy, either, he was—he was a guy Chloe kept forgetting to end things with, for a straight calendar year. Maybe that made her the bad guy.

"I would've stalled too," Aubrey said. "Like, he had Hulu Plus. No ads."

"Yeah, I guess," Chloe said.

•

Berkeley was a nice city. It was easy to forget, if you lived in the Bay, and you had to look at your bank account all the time and wonder what you were doing with your life. But it was nice. Even when it was gray.

"I seriously have no idea where we're going," Chloe said.

"Duh," Beca said. "Have you really never been to the park before?"

Chloe shrugged. They'd had a particularly rainy winter, and Tilden was super green, especially against the cloudy sky. "I'm not good with nature."

Beca rolled her eyes. "You never even came with Tom to Grizzly Peak or whatever? For a date?"

She wasn't close with Beca. They'd known each other vaguely at Michigan, and they both happened to head to Cal for post-grad, and it was convenient in adulthood to have someone close by who'd known you when you were nineteen, in case you were unwisely starting to feel overconfident or nostalgic. But Aubrey had suggested that she needed to be social, and Beca did a lot of lesbian shit like hiking, so she'd thought: why not try something new? And asked if they could hang out and hit the trails.

"Maybe we drove by it or something," Chloe said. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to speak his name. I'm straight off the breakup and everything, it's a fresh wound."

"Sorry, Bridget Jones."

Beca looked like she belonged on the trails: she was wearing leggings like Chloe, but she had on a flannel and a vest, and she had a fancy sporty water bottle and a carabiner for her keys and even a Carhartt beanie, and real hiking boots that were probably from REI or something. It was pretty Berkeley, and also pretty fucking gay when you factored in the forearm tattoo and cuffed ear piercings.

"Do you," Chloe started, and then too late realized Beca was going to make fun of her, but whatever, she'd dug the hole, "uh, do you, like, take girls up here?"

Beca was ahead of her by a step, but that actually seemed to trip her up, so they drew even; her face was split by one of her very rare, sharky grins. "I'm taking a girl up here right now," she said.

"I don't even know why I asked that," Chloe said.

"Sure," said Beca somewhat cryptically, and then, "I dunno, I guess sometimes if they have a dog or something. I'm not pressed for company on hikes."

Chloe laughed. "Are you pressed for company anywhere?"

"Not really."

They made it several yards in silence, and then Chloe felt awkwardness take hold of her. "You're lucky, I wish I was like that. I hate being alone."

Beca was drawing ahead again. "Most people do."

"Thanks for taking my hike virginity, by the way," Chloe said after another minute. "This is actually fun. I feel like a true Berkeleyite now."

"Ew," Beca said with feeling.

Anyway, it was nice.

•

Aubrey was a 3L and a total gunner and Chloe's best friend in California by far. She was also most of the way to insane, and her imagination was a terrifying place.

"You went on a date," Aubrey said flatly. "A dykey Berkeley hike date with Beca Mitchell. That's not what I meant by socialize."

"I don't know why you think it was a date."

"It was just the two of you."

"So?"

"So she's hot! And you broke up with Tom, like, months ago."

Chloe frowned. "Three weeks, but okay."

Aubrey looked at her searchingly. "What kind of law student just has the free time to like, take someone they don't wanna fuck to the woods?"

"You can't _say_ that, that's horrible," Chloe said, but right then and there she was fixated on it. Beca was busy as hell, they all were, it was law school, and they'd wasted most of a Saturday, between the trail and getting food afterward, and they were really more friendly acquaintances than anything, so—so maybe it meant—

But it didn't matter anyway, she thought, what, was she crazy? She couldn't go on dates with Beca, whose longest relationship was probably with her Audio-Technica studio headphones. Beca was mean, and Chloe needed actual validation from her partners, and she was never going to go vegan even for love, and it just wouldn't work, for a million valid reasons, except maybe as a casual thing, which—

She couldn't stop thinking about it.

•

They were in Evidence together, so from time to time they hung out at the library or various other spots on campus, just reading and highlighting and typing side-by-side in silence. It was companionable and easy, and normally it made studying less intolerable, and still the past two weeks Chloe hadn't managed to focus at all. Beca had pushed her headphones slightly off one ear today, which almost seemed like an invitation for Chloe to speak to her. She seized on her chance.

"Are you free this weekend?" she said, when Beca looked up from her laptop to dig for a pen.

"Maybe," said Beca, which was as close to a yes as Chloe was liable to get.

"I was thinking we could catch a movie."

Beca wrinkled her nose. "I wasn't planning on leaving the house."

"You don't have to!" Chloe said brightly. "We can watch something at your place. I'll even bring snacks, if you want me to."

The headphones came off all the way. Chloe felt some feeling snap to life and shine in her chest, like a glowstick. "You want to come to my place?" Beca shook her head sadly. "What if I don't own a TV? What if I have a bunch of really creepy pets?"

"Stop pretending to be a psycho. I want to hang out," Chloe insisted.

"Fine," Beca said, and she was nearly, but not quite, smiling.

•

"I brought Legally Blonde," Chloe said on Sunday evening, holding up the DVD.

Beca just stood in the doorway looking at her. "You brought a physical copy of Legally Blonde to my house?"

Chloe lowered her arm tentatively. "What, you don't like Reese?"

"Oh no, I was expecting a shitty unrealistic chick flick," Beca said, very unfairly. "I just meant, you know, we could stream it like normal people?"

They streamed it like normal people, on Beca's pretty nice TV. Everything about the night was going pretty nice. Beca got a couple of beers out of the refrigerator, and her commentary was mean and amusing, and her apartment was interesting to look at—cramped but cozy, covered in musical equipment and art posters and law textbooks, and with herbs growing in organized pots on the windowsill. Her couch was covered in a couple of knitted throws that looked handmade. It was sweeter and homier than Chloe had imagined.

"I wish there was a sequel to this movie about that lesbian," Beca said.

Chloe nodded. "Me too. I think the Legally Blonde franchise has a lot of gay potential."

"Vivian," Beca agreed. "Maybe that should be the sequel: Vivian and Elle get together. Enid the lesbian also finds happiness. Or maybe there's a love triangle."

"There are already like multiple Legally Blonde sequels," Chloe said. "But that sounds better to me. I would watch a miniseries of that."

"The L Word, but L stands for law school," Beca said, which wouldn't have been that funny, except it was Beca, and the image of her actually watching The L Word was funny on its own—Beca, whose taste in movies was such that she called them films—and also Chloe got giggly when she drank even the tiniest bit. She laughed and laughed.

The banter went on like that till the end, and Chloe even got Beca to cheer with her when the credits came about Vivian dumping Warner, which was amazing. Then they were watching the credits roll together in pleasant silence, and Beca drained the rest of her beer, clicked off the TV, and said, "Hey. I really want to kiss you. But I won't ask again or be offended or anything if you say no. Obviously."

It struck Chloe as unexpected; how unassuming, and how soft and considerate, and her tone was—gallant, chivalrous, some word like that, like she actually gave a shit about Chloe's feelings and respected her. Chloe's mouth felt really dry all of a sudden. "I'm gonna get a glass of water real quick," she said. "But then, yeah, definitely."

She got some water, which helped with the dry feeling, and also a little bit with the prickling heat she had started to feel everywhere, and then she sat back down on the couch. It had been awhile since—since she'd been with anyone new.

"Um," Chloe said. "I haven't, like—I'm not trying to—maybe we can go slow."

"All casual," Beca said, understanding immediately. "I'm not Tom."

"You seriously need to stop saying his name," Chloe said, and tipped forward and kissed her. It was so easy to do that it was stupid. For one thing, Beca was good at it; she kissed with her entire body, and her focus was singular, and she wasn't anything like Chloe would've thought, not particularly aggressive or restrained, certainly not mean, just firm and whole. They just made out for a while, a long time, Chloe kind of lost track, and it was perfectly lovely even if it wasn't going anywhere in particular, and then all of a sudden Beca was pushing her back into the cushions and breathing a little harder and saying,

"I do have a bed."

"I would love to see it," Chloe said. Not smooth, not cool, verging on creepy, but what did it matter: she wasn't trying to impress anyone.

So it went. It was good, really good, even. It was something she didn't have to think about at all, no worries or strings, thank God: that was what she'd been looking for.

•

Aubrey was pretending to read ATL at the kitchen table when Chloe came home the next morning. "Have you no shame?" she said, the moment Chloe hung her keys on the hook, as if she'd been waiting there all night, like some sort of freak. "I can't believe you had sex with her on a _Sunday night._ Don't you have class? Or a job?"

"My lecture's not for another two hours," Chloe said defensively.

"Fine, many happy returns," said Aubrey. "Invite me to your housewarming party in two weeks. And I expect to be in the wedding."

"Make U-haul jokes all you want," Chloe said. "I remember when that girl you internet dated for one week proposed to you."

Aubrey waved her hand like that was irrelevant. "The point is, I knew it."

"You did not know it."

"I said your hike was a date. I always know."

"This isn't dating." Chloe tried to sound cool and even. "It's a casual thing. She said she wasn't going to be Tom."

"What does _that_ mean," Aubrey said gleefully.

"I don't know." Chloe toed off her shoes and went to go sit with her at the kitchen table. She was starving. She'd probably get up to cook soon; sleeping with Beca wasn't as fun to talk about as it was to do. "We didn't talk much after that. I think she meant, like, she didn't want to do the whole relationship song and dance. But anyway."

Aubrey hummed noncommittally, and then said, "Speaking of song and dance, are you gonna do Law Revue with me and the girls this year, or what?"

"Yeah, I should. Beca might be into it too, you know, she's into music."

"Ask her, then," Aubrey said, like the _duh_ was implied.

•

She kept hooking up with Beca. Like, a lot. It wasn't just that she hated being on her own, it was that Beca was simple: even when she was surprising you, she was always telling you exactly what was on her mind. There was nothing complicated about it. And she was really hot, and so different from Tom that Chloe didn't think of him at all anymore, and she didn't have to explain anything—like why she was busy all the time, or why she didn't want to jump into a relationship, or why she changed the lyrics of popular songs to be about crim pro and Supreme Court dissents when she sang in the shower.

Beca understood her, because Beca didn't make a big deal out of trying to.

•

Eventually she organized a group of them to go hiking. Sometimes she had to force Beca to hang out in groups of people in order for Beca to admit that she actually liked people, somewhere deep down inside her withered black heart. They met up in the redwoods, the two of them and Aubrey and Beca's friend Jesse, and Cynthia from the LGBT advocacy group on campus, and Jesse's 1L friend Benji.

The more athletic people pulled ahead, and Chloe lagged behind with the boys. Benji was adorable, fresh out of undergrad, and made Chloe feel super old and wise in a fun way, and Jesse was pretty cool too, really into art cinema like Beca. This was something Chloe loved about law school, about school in general: meeting all the people who were like you in unique ways, and unlike you in even more unique ways, and becoming their friends and drinking with them a lot. It was heartwarming.

It turned out Benji was a singer, and had double-majored in politics and musical theater, and Chloe figured that was it, he needed to get tight with Aubrey, so she sent him to catch up with the others.

"Are we that out of shape?" Jesse asked. "I've never felt more like a guy who spends all his time in a library."

"Last time Beca and I went out, she could barely walk slow enough to accomodate me," Chloe said.

Jesse raised his eyebrows, mouth curling up in a slight but easygoing smirk. "She took you hiking?"

"Yeah?"

"Aw, man, she's full of it. She told me you guys weren't dating."

"We're not," Chloe said, felt the need to say, to make it super clear. "I mean—we're not."

"Sorry, sorry," said Jesse. "I shouldn't assume, she's just got an old bag of moves. Hiking date, home-cooked meal, that's how I know she's into someone. Not that she pulls the same stops on purpose, she's just, I don't know."

"Gay?" Chloe supplied. Her heartbeat was speeding up a little, for some reason.

Jesse laughed. "You said it."

•

She didn't realize she was in the shit until it was too late. They'd fallen into something that her dumb reptile brain was starting to consider a pattern: Chloe would bug Beca at the library, or find her at the end of Evidence, and then they would either head straight to Beca's or agree to meet up over the weekend, which Chloe would usually confirm with a text.

They were in Evidence, sitting next to each other; when class was over, Chloe leaned over towards Beca and gave her a sugary smile.

"What do you want," Beca said, but her eyes were happy-creasing a little.

"Come on," said Chloe. "Your place?"

Beca raised one pretty eyebrow. "I have plans today, sorry," she said slowly.

It wasn't like Beca had no other friends, Chloe reminded herself. She had Jesse and Benji, and her crew from the journal, plus she was friendly with plenty of the other queer women on campus— _more than friendly with some of them, too,_ Chloe's brain helpfully supplied, which she wasn't meant to be thinking, because what business was it of hers? They weren't like that. She had no right to know, or even to wonder.

It was moderately embarrassing to be caught out like this, clearly expectant when this wasn't even—well. But also it was only Beca, and it was hard to be embarrassed around her. She was the same level of acidic no matter how cool you were, and anyway, her bark was worse than her bite.

Chloe smiled again, and shrugged. "All good," she said.

But she only made it to Friday night until she was firing off a text: _wanna grab dinner tomorrow?_

Beca: _i'll cook for you!_

"Don't smile at your phone like that," Aubrey said from the other end of the couch. "It makes you look like a perv."

•

Beca was an insanely good cook, so Chloe understood what Jesse was talking about now. If she knew nothing else about Beca, if she met her in a bar or on an app, she'd probably get down on one knee for her pesto.

"This is so good," Chloe said for the seventh time. "Seriously. You are a genius. I think you should be a celebrity chef."

"That would be one way to pay off my debilitating loans," Beca said.

Chloe shook her head. "I'm serious! You're really talented. I don't know how you made pasta taste this good when it's just, I don't know, noodles."

Beca's face went funny for a second, and then it smoothed over and she said, "Yeah, so anyway, um, this one's vegetarian but not vegan. The pasta is actually homemade."

Chloe could see it, and then a vision came startling and clear to her head: Beca, in her sunsoaked kitchen, standing in front of a pasta maker, patiently working the dough, her arms flexing, and Chloe standing behind her, arms circling her waist, kissing her neck. It wasn't—strictly sexy, it was hot, but it was more domestic, it was—

"Also, I can't believe I put garlic in this," Beca said. "I don't know what I was thinking. I want to make out with you, but I have garlic mouth."

It was messing with Chloe's heart, how Beca could be deadpan and acid-tongued and act like she was too cool for the entire world and then turn around and say things like garlic mouth, how she could mercilessly tease Chloe's favorite movie and then ask to kiss her with such gentility. It messed with her to think of Beca making pasta in a kitchen that could be theirs. She was losing the plot. Something was happening to her.

"It's still a mouth I would be honored to put my mouth on," Chloe said finally, which came out sounding less like a joke and more strangely formal, and Beca laughed anyway, a real laugh, which was as rare as a diamond.

They went to bed a while later. Chloe hadn't spent the night since her first time over, and she felt like it was going to mean something if she did it now, something she couldn't take back, leaping off a ledge, but she couldn't help it. She was already falling.

•

In the morning, Beca kissed Chloe as soon as she woke up, and then apologized for her breath and went to go brush her teeth, and then came back to lie down, and they were quiet for a minute, and then:

"Chloe, I really like you," Beca said. She was staring at the ceiling, not making eye contact, but she looked otherwise perfectly at ease.

"What?" Chloe sat up and leaned over the side of the bed to find her shirt. She just couldn't have this conversation and not be wearing a shirt. Her heart was beating an insane rhythm against her ribcage, like a hummingbird doing Beethoven. She couldn't even think. Her desire to pin Beca to the mattress was equal to her desire to sprint out of the room and never return and vomit out her soul.

Beca sat up too. "I have feelings for you. If you don't have them for me, I think maybe we should stop this."

"How can you say stuff like that and be so calm?" Chloe wasn't even the one putting her heart on the line, and she felt insane, actually insane, like she was going to tear her hair out. People didn't just talk like Beca did, with complete, naked honesty, especially not _lawyers,_ for fuck's sake. Nobody in real life just went around baring their soul and telling you it was okay if you didn't bare your soul right back. Beca was like a made-up person. Chloe cared about her so much.

"It is what it is. You feel the same or you don't, I'll be fine either way." Beca shrugged, like she meant it, like it was nothing, but her face said it all: it was want, so open and earnest it was basically unbearable to look at.

"I don't want this to be like what it was," Chloe said after a moment. "I mean, fuck—like—what I had with Tom, that was so fucking stupid. I was not in love with him, I just thought maybe I could be, or like—I'm awful at being alone. And it would be awful if I did that to you."

"Yeah," said Beca wearily.

Chloe shut her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. "I'm not going to go vegan for you."

"I've been into you since we were at Michigan," Beca said, flat as anything, like she might as well have been reading out the weather report, instead of dropping a bomb inside Chloe's chest cavity. "I don't give a shit what you eat."

"You've liked me for…years? What, were you never going to tell me?"

Beca fisted her hands in the sheets. "I didn't think it would matter," she said. "Now I think it does."

"You don't get to do that," Chloe said. Years. She had a clear memory of the first time they'd ever met; she was sober chaperoning at her sorority, and Beca had showed up to the party with an amused and haughty look, like she knew she was smarter and better than anyone else in the room, and she didn't drink either, just abandoned her date and stood in the kitchen with Chloe, not making friends and not giving two shits about it either. Chloe had always admired her for disregarding what other people thought, but this was—this wasn't like that. She got dressed. "You don't get to just decide—I mean, what if I'd liked you back, or, we could've, I don't know. I have to go. I'm gonna go, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

Beca didn't say anything, not even when Chloe left.

•

They didn't talk for two weeks, not even a text. Term was coming to a close, and Aubrey had gotten an offer from a firm in San Francisco, which was a fantastically huge deal, so things were busy anyway. Chloe found herself sitting in the front during Evidence, where she would be sure of avoiding Beca, and more than once she tried to make herself turn around, wave, say something when they left, but she was missing Beca's honesty, or her bravery, or something. Whatever part of Beca made her take a risk without bothering to check if the risk paid off.

•

That Sunday, Chloe ran into Tom at the grocery store.

She felt nothing, like literally nothing, not for all forty-five agonizing seconds they spoke to one another. And something clicked in Chloe's brain, some gear shifted fundamentally into place. She never wanted to feel like this again, she never wanted to feel this empty. She liked Beca, _really_ liked her. She was being a colossal idiot.

She was so caught up in this swell of realization that she actually went over to Beca's place with all her grocery bags in hand, but whatever, she was past the point of no return now: she rang the doorbell.

"I like you so much," she said, the second Beca opened the door. "I have feelings for you too. And it sucks that you didn't tell me, because then maybe we could've—but it doesn't matter, you're right. And I want to keep being with you."

"This really is some inexcusable Bridget Jones shit," Beca said, but her voice was all choked up.

"These are my groceries, sorry," Chloe said, "I'm just gonna put them down for a second so I can kiss you."

She did that, and put one flat palm wonderingly against Beca's neck, and then Beca was pulling away. "You know," Beca said, "just because I don't care and I say what I want to say doesn't mean I'm—good or right or something. It sucked that I didn't tell you. I wanted to like. Apologize. For that."

Chloe kissed her again, and said, "Let me come in and put my groceries in your fridge. Not a euphemism."

"Ew," Beca said, and it was nice.


End file.
